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Business and homeowner utility costs could double in many states if environmental groups succeed in enacting draconian solar and wind power mandates in states across the country.

Yet these mandates will have almost no impact in cleaning the air or reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In Arizona and Nevada, voters will decide on Nov. 6 whether to adopt renewable mandates requiring local utilities to buy at least 50 percent of their electric power from green energy—mostly, wind and solar power.

At least a dozen other states are set to ramp up their mandatory standards (also called “renewable portfolio standards”) in 2019. California is set to move to 60 percent legally mandated renewable energy by 2030 and 100 percent by 2045.

These mandates come with a steep price to American families and businesses. Residents in states with existing high mandates must often pay between 50 percent and 100 percent more on their electric bills than residents of states where utilities are free to rely on the market and purchase electric power from the lowest-cost sources—often coal, natural gas, or nuclear power.

Because lower-income households spend five to 10 times more as a share of their incomes on energy than do high-income households, high renewable portfolio standards are a regressive—and unduly burdensome—tax on the poor.

Ironically, these green initiatives are usually sponsored by billionaire liberal funders, such as investor Tom Steyer of California.

While the natural growth of renewable energy sources is a positive development, mandates are an economically disastrous method that crowds out the market for affordable electricity.

Today, the United States produces more than 75 percent of its electricity from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. Less than 10 percent comes from solar and wind power.

Given the massive federal subsidies of more than $150 billion between 2009 and 2014 to the wind and solar industries, that is an amazingly small percentage.

Comparing the states with the most stringent renewable portfolio standards (25 percent or more) with the states with low ones (10 percent or less), and then with states with none, reveals a pattern.

States with high renewable portfolio standards have electric power rates that are about 27 percent per kilowatt hour more expensive than states with low ones, and about 50 percent higher than states without them.

The Heartland Institute estimates costs could total an extra $1,000 per year per household, compared with current electricity costs, at the proposed rate increase in Arizona.

This could mean tens of thousands of dollars of higher costs for a business, depending on energy usage. For manufacturers, it could mean $100,000 or more of extra costs.

Lower-income families would be most adversely affected by stricter green energy requirements. This is because poorer households typically pay about seven times more as a share of their income in energy costs than do wealthier families.

Middle-class families pay at least twice as high a share of their income in energy bills than do the rich.

One of the critical flaws of renewable energy requirements is that they almost all squeeze out two of the most dominant and cleanest forms of energy used across the country—natural gas and nuclear power.

But from an environmental and clean air standpoint, and for the purposes of reducing greenhouse gases that may be linked to climate change, this distinction makes no sense.

It appears simply to be a multibillion-dollar corporate welfare giveaway to the solar and wind industries at the expense of ratepayers.

Even coal that is burned in Arizona, Nevada, and other states is much cleanertoday than it was 20 or 30 years ago. All of this is evidenced by the dramatic improvement in air quality nationally over the past 35 years.

Only a small percentage of this clean air progress is due to renewable energy, because over most of this period, wind and solar power have been fairly inconsequential sources of U.S. energy production.

Since 1980, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants have fallen by 67 percent.

To put that in perspective: That reduction occurred amid a dramatic expansion of the U.S. economy. Gross domestic product increased by 165 percent, vehicle miles traveled increased 110 percent, the U.S. population grew by 44 percent, and energy consumption increased by 25 percent.

For these reasons, the “clean energy” initiative is best thought of as a regressive tax imposed on those who can least afford it.

Again, this “tax” could cost middle-income and lower-income American families about $1,000 more per year in utility prices. These mandates could also negatively affect business productivity and move jobs to areas with more energy choices.

Americans deserve affordable, abundant, and reliable energy. Renewable energy mandates are a “green tax” on homeowners and small businesses that can least afford it.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is warning that the dire costs of climate change are going to be here sooner than we think.

The planet is close to reaching its alleged 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold, and civilization only has 11 years to fix it.

Oh, yeah, and the solution is to tear down the global free-enterprise system responsible for human flourishing and raising levels of prosperity for billions of people.

Don’t take my word for it.

A writer for the eco-friendly Grist tweeted, “The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism as a key requirement to maintaining civilization and a habitable planet.”

Eric Holthaus

✔@EricHolthaus

If you are wondering what you can do about climate change:

The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism as a key requirement to maintaining civilization and a habitable planet.

I mean, if you are looking for something to do.

Eric Holthaus

✔@EricHolthaus

The world’s top climate scientists are about to announce that—without radical coordinated action—the world has locked in warming of at least 1.5°C.

Heroic efforts are now necessary to save the world from catastrophic climate change.Be a hero.Watch live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12S3dKrxj7c …

The reality is that, though the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and proponents of dismantling the free-enterprise system have been shockingly honest in revealing their true intentions over the past few days, the sentiment is not new.

In fact, three years ago, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres made similar remarks in a push for the Paris climate accord.

Figueres said, “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

The current economic development model that reigns supreme does so for compelling reasons.

People that freely exchange ideas and products, that have protection from government coercion and that have well-defined and protected property rights because of a strong rule of law have done quite well for themselves.

Conversely, international efforts to combat climate change have been centrally planned boondoggles. They’ve resulted in wasted taxpayer money, higher energy prices, and handouts for preferred energy sources and technologies—all for no noticeable impact on climate.

Eighty percent of all energy consumed by Americans comes from conventional sources, such as coal, oil, and natural gas. About 80 percent of the world’s energy needs are met by these natural resources, which emit carbon dioxide when combusted.

Levying a price on carbon dioxide will directly raise the cost of electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, and home-heating oil. But the economic pain does not stop there.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggests policy proposals that would be economically cataclysmic.

It proposes a carbon tax of between $135 and $5,500 by 2030. A $5,500 carbon tax equates to a $50-per-gallon gas tax. An energy tax of that magnitude would bankrupt families and businesses, and undoubtedly catapult the world into economic despair.

Importantly, an extreme climate policy would also divert resources away from pressing environmental concerns, such as investing in more robust infrastructure to protect against natural disasters or new, innovative technologies that improve air and water quality.

Are those costs worth it? After all, having wealth, health, and affordable power don’t mean all that much if people don’t have a planet to live on. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates the climate costs could total $54 trillion without action.

But is there any new revelation in the scientific literature that makes climate doom imminent?

Not according to climatologist Judith Curry, a former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Curry asserts that the main conclusion from the report is that “things would be a little better at 1.5C relative to 2C.”

Furthermore, she notes, “Over land, we have already blown through the 1.5C threshold if measured since 1890.

“Temperatures around 1820 were more than 2C cooler. There has been a great deal of natural variability in temperatures prior to 1975, when human-caused global warming kicked in any meaningful way.”

Another critical point Curry highlights is the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change largely disregards the lower thirds of likely climate sensitivity values between 1.5C and 4.5C.

Equilibrium climate sensitivity attempts to quantify the earth’s temperature response to carbon dioxide emissions, answering the question: How does the earth’s temperature change from a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

There is a lot of scientific debate about equilibrium climate sensitivity within the climate literature, with a fair amount of uncertainty. And, as Curry mentions, “Much of this problem goes away if ECS is actually 1.5 to 2C.”

What about natural disasters? The University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke Jr., who specializes in analyzing extreme weather trends, emphasizes that “the IPCC once again reports that there is little basis for claiming that drought, floods, hurricanes [and] tornadoes have increased, much less increased due to [greenhouse gases].”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s politicization of policy actions presents another problem, and it is evident in the way the report treats nuclear energy.

Nuclear power provides nearly 60 percent of America’s carbon dioxide-free electricity, yet the climate panel engages in fearmongering about its expanded use. One would think that if climate change were an existential crisis, the world would need all the nuclear power it can get.

While the report acknowledges that any pathway to meeting carbon dioxide-reduction targets will include increased nuclear buildout, the report says more nuclear “can increase the risks of proliferation, have negative environmental effects (e.g., for water use), and have mixed effects for human health when replacing fossil fuels.”

Regardless of the cause, there are undoubted challenges from a changing climate.

Investing in coral reef protection or in preparation for extreme weather events can be worthwhile. However, the combination of fearmongering and offering solutions that would require a takeover of the global economy are unrealistic and counterproductive.

As they continue to press for full Senate approval, proponents of a new U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, which would be established by the BUILD Act of 2018, assert that the new corporation would help the world realize the United Nations’ grand-scale “sustainable development goals.”

But seeking to gain support from conservatives for the International Development Finance Corporation—which would replace the Overseas Private Investment Corporation—by framing the sustainable development goals in a positive light is a dubious proposition at best.

Conservatives know that adoption by developing countries of policies promoting economic freedom is a far better approach than government spending on sustainable development goals programs, as The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom demonstrates year after year.

Perhaps BUILD Act promoters are not familiar with the spot-on critique of sustainable development goals by economics professor Bill Easterly of New York University. Parodying the U.N.’s “SDG” acronym, he rightly called them “senseless, dreamy, garbled” utopian goals.

Easterly noted that buried within the ponderous 35-page U.N. declaration of the 17 sustainable development goals, which was launched with great fanfare in 2015, are phrases such as “thematic reviews of progress,” “implement the 10-year framework of [programs],” and “accelerated modalities of action.”

The 17 goals, in turn, have 169 targets, a list that has both too many items and too little content for each entry, such as target 12.8: “By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.”

Proponents of the International Development Finance Corporation actually concede that even spending trillions of taxpayer dollars every year would not be enough to achieve the amorphous and poorly defined U.N. goals.

But then, that’s not surprising, given Easterly’s observation that “the [sustainable development goals] are so encyclopedic that everything is top priority, which means nothing is a priority.”

Easterly thus confirms our commonsense intuition that neither an International Development Finance Corporation, nor any other government foreign aid program, should be based on achieving the sustainable development goals.

Taken in whole, the [sustainable development goals] are, quite simply, a mess—broadly unusable as a framework for development.

They do, however, hold great promise for fulfilling the real purpose of their drafters: to justify the inevitable calls of development professionals and developing countries for more funding.

Trying to implement the [sustainable development goals] will cost a fortune. According to U.N. estimates, meeting the [sustainable development goals] will require $3 trillion a year.

In an era of declining budgets for development assistance, expectations at the United Nations and in some developing countries of huge, new sustainable development goals programs that would be heavily funded by American taxpayers and those of other Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development nations fly in the face of budgetary realities.

As the 2015 Heritage analysis concluded: “No matter how generous Washington is and plans to be, at Turtle Bay [U.N. headquarters in New York], the answer will always be “not enough.”

The private sector-led investments that the International Development Finance Corporation would encourage are certainly the more realistic way forward for development policy. Indeed, private sector investment to developing countries has far outstripped foreign assistance in recent years.

However, the best way to encourage foreign investment is not to subsidize it in countries that have access to international financial markets, but to encourage policy changes to attract private investment.

BUILD Act proponents would be better advised to make further substantial changes to the bill to focus it on projects that either have a compelling foreign policy and national security justification, or provide a bridge for those countries that lack access to international capital markets while encouraging them to adopt pro-market policies.

Specifically, the BUILD Act should be amended to:

Reduce contingent liability to $30 billion to maintain the current level of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. (As it stands now, the BUILD Act would double that cap to $60 billion.)

Require congressional approval—not just congressional notification—for projects in upper-middle income economies based on a foreign policy/national security policy justification.

Eliminate the Development Advisory Committee that was added to the Senate bill. That could increase the influence of Beltway insiders at a new International Development Finance Corporation.

Just another piecemeal fix, the BUILD Act would only further complicate America’s already unwieldy development assistance mechanisms.

Congress should consider the more ambitious and effective approach of overhauling and improving U.S. foreign aid that Heritage has proposed.

The reason why many of the foreign aid projects funded by trillions of tax dollars since World War II have failed to lift countries out of poverty is because that spending has not been tied to incentives to improve policies and the rule of law in developing countries.

Those are the incentives that any new International Development Finance Corporation should prioritize.

Delaware residents are the victims of deceptive business practices associated with a green energy scheme resulting from elected officials’ sweetheart deal with a fuel cell company, policy analysts and academics argue.

Bloom Energy had pledged to create 900 full-time jobs in Delaware by Sept. 30, 2016, and to continue employing these workers for at least seven years.

But a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from Bloom Energy’s initial public offering in June shows that as of March, it had only 277 full-time employees.

“Bloom has been able to milk Delaware taxpayers and ratepayers for massive subsidies, gain preferential treatment on multiple fronts, and avoid rules that are rigorously applied to other industries,” energy researcher Paul Driessen said during an event Friday at The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters on Capitol Hill.

The Delaware General Assembly extended financial inducements to Bloom Energy through legislation in 2012, a major topic during the panel discussion at Heritage, as was what Driessen and other speakers called preferential treatment from state regulators and other government officials.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company manufactures solid oxide fuel cells that use an electrochemical reaction to transform natural gas into electricity.

Bloom Energy traces its roots to 2002, when a Silicon Valley venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, invested in the green energy company. (That firm is now known as Kleiner Perkins.)

In April 2012, Bloom Energy opened a manufacturing facility in Newark, Delaware, on a site owned by the University of Delaware that previously was occupied by a Chrysler assembly plant.

David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, told the Heritage audience that Bloom Energy isn’t a genuine green energy company because its fuel cells use fossil fuels and release more carbon dioxide than traditional natural gas plants.

Bloom Energy’s fuel cells also run on methane gas, which produces hazardous waste, he said.

Even so, the company qualifies for renewable energy credits under Delaware’sRenewable Energy Portfolio Standards Act, which calls on utilities to draw 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. The company also is exempt from the state’s hazardous waste rules.

“Bloom Energy asserts that nothing on either side of the chemical equation is hazardous material, which technically is true,” Legates said. “However, no clean commercial source of methane exists. Thus, it contains many hazardous products that must be removed from the methane before it can be added to the fuel cell to avoid contamination … These compounds must be removed in sulfur canisters.”

The statement is misleading because it “ignores the presence of hazardous waste in the methane source,” he said.

But because Delaware officials accepted the company’s description of its manufacturing process, state rules governing hazardous waste aren’t applicable, he said.

In 2012 legislation amending Delaware’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards Act to allow fuel cells to be used as a renewable energy source, several provisions worked to the disadvantage of state residents, Legates said.

The law calls for a mandated surcharge, described as a tariff, on the bills of every Delmarva Power ratepayer that state lawmakers guaranteed to Bloom Energy for 21 years. The law also includes a clause that says Bloom Energy is entitled to all of the 21-year tariff if the law ever is repealed.

Legates described the arrangement between the state government and Bloom Energy as a sweetheart deal.

Delaware government officials charge Bloom Energy annual rent of $1 for its Newark manufacturing plant, and pledged to spend more than $16 million to upgrade the facility, he said.

“To date, Delmarva Power ratepayers have paid Bloom Energy approximately $200 million, and the total take by Bloom Energy from the state has been $300 million,” Legates said. “Moreover, the energy produced by Bloom Energy was more than three times as expensive [as traditional natural gas sources] in 2012, and now estimates place [it] as much as six times more expensive than traditional natural gas sources.”

Newark-based Delmarva Power, a subsidiary of Exelon Corp., provides electricity and natural gas to customers on portions of the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware and Maryland.

The Daily Signal sought comment from Bloom Energy, but had not received a response by publication time.

Citizen Activist Denied Standing

John Nichols, a retired financial planner from Middletown, Delaware, who filed two lawsuits challenging Bloom Energy’s business practices and government policies that facilitate those practices, also spoke during the Heritage event.

In June 2012, Nichols sued then-Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat, and members of the state Public Service Commission. Nichols argued that the state’s deal with Bloom Energy is unconstitutional.

In January 2013, Nichols appealed a decision by the state Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board that he didn’t have standing to challenge the permit issued to Bloom Energy by the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

The courts ruled that he did not have standing in either his state or federal lawsuit.

“To violate both the spirit and intent of the Delaware Coastal Act took failure on a massive scale,” Nichols said during the Heritage event. “Ironically, these failures may serve a valuable public purpose.”

That’s because government agencies are responsible for consequences to ratepayers and taxpayers that are beginning to gain attention, he said.

“The notion that all these failures are a coincidence strains credulity to the breaking point,” Nichols said. “These failures demand accountability for Delawareans, Delmarva ratepayers, taxpayers, Bloom investors, and everyone who values the beauty of the Delaware coastline.”

‘Duped Investors’

Although the state’s favoritism to Bloom Energy deserves further exposure and investigation, the company also benefits from “deep state” relationships at the national level with government and corporate figures, chemical engineer Lindsay Leveen told the Heritage audience by telephone.

Leveen, who is a consultant to corporations on energy deregulation and writes for the website Green Explored, reviewed the history of Bloom Energy and what he called its “collusion” with the internet company Google.

John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins in 1999, invested in Google and sits on the tech giant’s board. Doerr helped to organize financial support for Bloom Energy on behalf of Kleiner Perkins in 2002, Leveen said.

In July 2008, Google became Bloom Energy’s first commercial customer. Three months earlier, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers had released a report funded by the Department of Energy concluding that Bloom Energy “had by far the worst fuel cell on market,” Leveen said in his own slide presentation.

Bloom Energy installed four “Bloom Boxes”—devices used to convert natural gas to electricity—at Google headquarters, but only one of them had to operate at limited capacity for 30 days to be deemed a commercial success, Leveen said.

“The performance test at Google simply duped investors,” he said. “We also know from the S-1 [the Securities and Exchange Commission filing] that many of the Bloom Boxes failed and were decommissioned, and that Bloom took a major financial loss on the decommissioning of those boxes.”

Leveen called for executive branch agencies to investigate Bloom Energy, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Say the Magic Words, Answer No Questions

Despite financial setbacks, Bloom Energy remains afloat because it received government subsidies, tax breaks, and other favors from high-ranking government officials, Driessen, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, said during his presentation. CFACT advocates free market solutions in energy policy.

“Bloom has been able to milk Delaware taxpayers and ratepayers for massive subsidies, gain preferential treatment on multiple fronts, and avoid rules that are rigorously applied to other industries,” Driessen said, adding:

The Delaware state legislature has allowed Bloom to operate under a unique definition of renewable energy that lets it qualify for special treatment and subsidies by claiming that its equipment could run on biofuels like methane from cows or landfills even if they never have done so, and even if they’ve always run solely on natural gas and even if they generate hazardous waste in the process.

Bloom Energy’s federal investment tax credit was eliminated in 2016, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., worked to restore the tax credit and make it retroactive to the date it ended, Driessen said. Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., helped Schumer revive the tax credit, he said.

Driessen cited figures showing state and federal officials have given fuel cell makers $3 billion in subsidies over the past decade, with $1.5 billion going to Bloom Energy. Even with this assistance, fuel cell companies lost $6 billion and Bloom lost $2.4 billion, he said.

“Bloom clearly appears to have made questionable statements and outright misrepresentations of material fact to legislatures, regulators, investors, and journalists,” he said, adding:

You might ask how do they get away with this? Actually, the formula for success is pretty simple. Invoke the magical, infinitely malleable terms climate change, renewable energy, sustainability, and environmental protection, and you can pretty much deceive, exaggerate, fabricate, and manipulate all you want. Few difficult questions will be raised, little transparency will be required, and no accountability demanded.

Earlier this year, Congress passed an irresponsible budget bill that included handouts for electric vehicle owners and alternative fuels.

Eager to frivolously waste more taxpayer dollars, some legislators are now pushing to extend the electric vehicle tax credit and lift the cap on the number of vehicles that qualify for the credit by each manufacturer.

Doing so would reward special interests and only benefit the wealthiest Americans. Congress should instead eliminate the subsidies for electric vehicles.

Promoted as a way to wean Americans off their alleged addiction to oil, both federal and state governments have generous handouts for electric vehicles. Consumers can use up to $7,500 of other peoples’ money to buy an electric vehicle.

Add in-state and local incentives and that number can easily top $10,000. In Colorado, for instance, a buyer can use up to $12,500 in federal and state tax credits to buy an electric vehicle, not to mention enjoy other perks like subsidized charging stations, preferred parking, HOV lane access, and exemption from emissions testing.

The federal tax credit applies to the first 200,000 electric vehicles per manufacturer, and then a phaseout of the credit begins. Tesla is in the phaseout period now and General Motors Co. is close to hitting the 200,000 mark.

Both the House and Senate introduced legislation to lift the per manufacturer cap and extend the subsidy another decade. In a press release, sponsors of the Senate bill urged that “federal action is needed to ensure a competitive electric vehicle market that continues to provide the choice and ability for consumers to purchase electric vehicles.”

Competition is not built on the foundation of government dependence. If federal action is necessary to ensure competition, it is more indicative of how uncompetitive the technology is. Subsidies may increase electric vehicle purchases in the short-term, but they counterproductively stifle innovation by encouraging reliance on preferential treatment from Washington.

When subject to the marketplace, manufacturers will understand the true price point at which consumers value an electric vehicle. Without the government picking winners and losers, the companies would have properly aligned incentives to provide a better product at a competitive price.

This holds true for not only electric vehicle subsidies, but subsidies for all energy sources and technologies.

Importantly, the fuel for electric vehicles is not free. As demand for electric vehicles increases as a result of the lower up-front subsidized price, so does the demand for electricity.

New research from the National Economic Research Associates shows that American households would, in fact, be worse off both as taxpayers and electricity consumers. The study projects that between 2020 and 2035, the average U.S. household would lose about $610 in personal income if the subsidy cap is removed. Cumulatively, total personal income of all American households would decrease by more than $7 billion over the 2020-2035 time frame.

If market-driven forces drove electricity prices higher as demand for electric vehicles increased, that would be one thing. But this is a cost borne as a result of the government pulling policy levers.

The indirect costs are particularly burdensome on lower- and fixed-income families who can’t afford electric vehicles and take advantage of the subsidies. Instead, the benefits of these subsidies accrue to America’s wealthiest households, which can also afford an electric vehicle without the subsidy.

This is borne out by data. The Pacific Research Institute found that in 2014, 79 percent of electric vehicle tax credits went to households making over $100,000, while 99 percent of them went to households making at least $50,000.

For these reasons, Congress should reject all attempts to extend the federal electric vehicle tax credit, and seek to lift the per manufacturer cap. A coalition of free-market organizations, including Heritage Action for America, has already sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, asking his committee to refrain from expanding the electric vehicle tax credit in any form.

Rather than picking favorites, policymakers should eliminate targeted tax credits for all transportation fuels and technologies. By eliminating the tax credit, the onus is on automotive companies to make electric vehicles competitive with gasoline-fueled cars.

By encouraging free and open competition in the electric vehicle industry, we will see companies bring innovations in their products and marketing that will make the electric vehicle market viable on its own—without the expensive, prohibitive, and stifling federal subsidies and mandates that exist today.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is poised to implement a new regulation without legislative approval to join 10 other states in a climate change agreement based on restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

But lawmakers, policy analysts, and tea party activists in Virginia who oppose what they consider costly regulations of industry are raising questions about the economic and scientific arguments underpinning the proposed rule.

They say the Virginia General Assembly should have a straight up-or-down vote on Northam’s plan, in part to ensure that any revenue the Democratic governor raises from “carbon trading” is collected and dispersed in a manner consistent with the state Constitution.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate agreement that currently includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. In addition to Virginia, New Jersey may rejoin the pact.

The public comment period for a draft version of Northam’s proposed regulation ended in April. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is expected to introduce a final version in November.

The seven-member Air Pollution Control Board then will be responsible for making a decision. Board members, appointed by the governor, operate independently from the Department of Environmental Quality.

Northam, a physician from the state’s Eastern Shore who previously was a state senator and lieutenant governor, took office in January after being elected governor last November.

Michael Dowd, director of the environmental agency’s Air and Renewable Energy Division, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that the Air Pollution Control Board “has a lot of authority with respect to promulgating regulations.”

A board majority may “reject, accept, or modify” the proposed rule as it sees fit, Dowd said.

If the board decides in favor of the regulation, he said, it could go into effect by December.

The Virginia General Assembly does not go back into session until January, however. With Democrat gains in the state’s November 2017 elections, Republicans have a 51-49 edge in the House of Delegates and a 21-19 margin in the state Senate.

Officials of states that entered the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative argue that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are responsible for dangerous levels of climate change, also known as global warming. These gases enter the atmosphere during the industrial burning of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil.

However, a growing number of scientists question theories that link human activity to significant climate change, and instead point to natural forces.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed an executive order earlier this year directing his agencies to re-enter RGGI. Murphy’s Republican predecessor, Chris Christie, had withdrawn from the climate change agreement.

Participating states are required to impose a “cap and trade” arrangement. Government officials set an upper limit on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel plants. But “allowances” may be traded back and forth among the companies subjected to the caps.

“Joining RGGI now is like joining a football team that’s trailing 40-3 in the 4th quarter,” Nick Loris, an energy policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal. ‘There’s no real upside. No impact on climate. Higher electricity bills for families. Lost business opportunities.”

Questioning the Governor’s Plan

The problem with the development in Virginia is that “unelected regulators” have been granted too much authority over major policy decisions that will have significant statewide impact, Craig Rucker, executive director and co-founder of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, told The Daily Signal.

“The RGGI system has been very damaging to those states that are participating,” Rucker said in a phone interview. “You see much higher electricity rates on average in those areas where RGGI is in effect, and you also see those states losing ground economically in comparison to other states that are not part of this agreement. And it should be noted that the RGGI states are not achieving anything in terms of lower global temperatures.”

The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, known as CFACT, is a Washington-based group that supports free market solutions in energy policy.

Virginia lawmakers should have the opportunity to weigh in on a regulatory change that could have “long-term ramifications,” Rucker said, adding:

Because the effects of these regulations are not always immediately evident and often materialize over time, I don’t think it’s healthy for our democracy to have this change implemented administratively by individuals who do not have to stand before the voters. We are talking about rising energy costs that will impact future generations and impact Virginia’s ability to compete economically with other states.

But Dowd, the state Department of Environmental Quality official, said the Northam administration disagrees with critics who say the governor is making an end-run around the General Assembly to join the multistate climate change pact.

“We’ve heard that argument and we disagree with it,” Dowd said in the interview with The Daily Signal. “Our position is, and it always has been, that the state air pollution law vests the state air board with broad authority to control air pollution, and that linking to RGGI in a carbon trade or carbon cap-and-trade program is well within the statutory, regulatory authority of the air board.”

While there will be “some expense” to energy consumers, the proposal has been carefully crafted to limit the impact, Dowd told The Daily Signal:

We have heard the concerns about [rising energy] costs and our response is that we have taken this into consideration in the economic modeling we have done, and the modeling indicates that the impact to ratepayers is relatively minimal. In fact, the impact to ratepayers should be a little over 1 percent between now and 2030. We think we have constructed a rule with the right approach and that this is the most cost-effective way to control carbon in Virginia.

In April, Northam vetoed a bill from Delegate Charles Poindexter, a Republican, that would have prohibited the governor or any state agency, including the Air Pollution Control Board, from entering into RGGI or creating any other cap-and-trade program without legislative approval.

“Climate change affects all citizens and business entities in the Commonwealth, especially those located in coastal regions,” the governor said, adding:

The Commonwealth must have all the tools available to combat climate change and protect its residents. These tools include the ability to adopt regulations, and rules and guidance that mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing carbon pollution in the Commonwealth. The governor and state agencies should not be limited in their ability to protect the environment and in turn, the citizens of the Commonwealth.

Randy Randol, who analyzes energy and environmental issues for the Virginia Tea Party, said in a phone interview that the governor already has tacitly acknowledged limits to his authority over finances, and that these limits could affect implementation of RGGI.

“As predicted, Northam has requested that he be allowed to spend permit fee collections, confirming that he lacks authority to fully implement the program,” Randol said.

Virginia Natural Resources Secretary Matthew Strickler informed a legislative commission earlier this month that Northam would ask the General Assembly “to keep and spend the proceeds of a new electricity carbon tax, rather than find a way to return it to ratepayers,” according to news reports.

Strickler estimates that under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Virginia utilities would have to purchase carbon credits that would generate $200 million in revenue.

Under the cap-and-trade plan, companies buy carbon credits from state governments, typically during “carbon auctions” consistent with RGGI regulations. State governments collect revenue as a result.

How this money is collected, distributed, and appropriated remains an open question and a major sticking point.

The carbon credits that energy companies would be required to purchase under such a plan would generate between $175 million and $208 million for Virginia government, according to a fiscal note attached to legislation from Democratic lawmakers to authorize a cap-and-trade plan. Lawmakers defeated that plan in a party-line vote.

“The Department of Environmental Quality originally sold RGGI as a recycling program to get the money back to the consumer,” Randol said. “The RGGI fee will be a direct pass-through to every class of electricity consumer—residential, business, and industry.”

The tea party activist added:

Utilities are immune because they will pass the tax along to the consumers. What the governor is calling a fee is really tax, and there are reasons why he doesn’t want to call it tax.

The Virginia Tea Party has opposed every ration and tax and cap-and-tax scheme that has been proposed. There was, for example, a proposal to tax power plant emissions to fund flood mitigation that we strongly opposed.

This proposal to move us into RGGI would impact the poorest residents of Virginia the most.

‘Where the Money Goes’

Poindexter, the state delegate who pushed the bill requiring the General Assembly to approve any move into RGGI, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that he opposes the governor’s plan both legally and substantively.

Although the Virginia Constitution may give the governor latitude to join RGGI, it doesn’t provide him with the authority to control the appropriation and spending of funds derived from the multistate agreement, Poindexter said.

“Where the money goes and who controls how it’s spent is still up in the air, and therein lies the problem with the governor doing this on his own,” Poindexter said. “Under the Virginia Constitution and state law, money cannot be spent without appropriation from the General Assembly. What’s happening now is an attempt to work around constitutional requirements and the requirements of state law, to allow the governor to have control of the estimated $200 million in revenue from the sale of these carbon credits.”

Poindexter, who represents Patrick County and parts of Franklin and Henry counties, also is a member of the state Commission on Energy and Environment.

As a matter of policy, Poindexter said, he views the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as detrimental to Virginia’s best interests. He anticipates that it will discourage energy production from inside the state and undermine future job opportunities.

“Virginia would not be putting itself in good company by joining RGGI,” the lawmaker said. “When you look at where the electricity rates are in those states that are now in RGGI versus what we have now in Virginia, my concern is that entering into this agreement would lead to electricity rates rising to some level that is equivalent or even higher than they are in those other RGGI states.”

“Also,” Poindexter said, “my understanding is that in RGGI states, electricity generation typically moves out of those states and the power is then imported. That would not be a healthy development for our state, should we start to lose those jobs related to energy generation.”

Rucker and others at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow also challenged the scientific premise underpinning RGGI and similar state-level agreements. They point to updated research that shows natural forces, as opposed to human activity, are primarily responsible for climate change.

EPA’s Proposed Rule

In the run-up to Saturday’s Virginia Tea Party Summit, another question was on the mind of participants.

Since the Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has proposed a rule replacing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan with guidelines giving states more flexibility to determine how to address greenhouse gas emissions, isn’t RGGI now superfluous?

“Our concern with what the EPA has proposed is that it is not very stringent and that it’s really not going to move the ball forward in terms of regulating carbon emissions,” Dowd of the state Department of Environmental Quality said. “RGGI represents a far more stringent and more realistic approach, and I don’t think the ACE rule as proposed is strong enough to control carbon.”

But Heritage’s Loris said he views the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as a losing proposition for Virginia.

“Interestingly, the United States isn’t leading the developed world in greenhouse gas reduction because of a regional cap-and-trade program,” Loris said. “The private sector’s investment in cheap, abundant, and affordable natural gas is the reason.”

If you’re like me, you’re happy the White House released the latest version of the National Climate Assessment on Black Friday. Publishing the 1,700-page report the day after Thanksgiving saved me from unwanted dinner conversations about our planet’s impending climate doom.

But if your aunt calls you up this week spouting claims of mass deaths, global food shortages, economic destruction, and national security risks resulting from climate change, here’s what you need to know about this report.

1. It wildly exaggerates economic costs.

One statistic that media outlets have seized upon is that the worst climate scenario could cost the U.S. 10 percent of its gross domestic product by 2100. The 10 percent loss projection is more than twice the percentage that was lost during the Great Recession.

The study, funded in part by climate warrior Tom Steyer’s organization, calculates these costs on the assumption that the world will be 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. That temperature projection is even higher than the worst-case scenario predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In other words, it is completely unrealistic.

2. It assumes the most extreme (and least likely)climate scenario.

The scary projections in the National Climate Assessment rely on a theoretical climate trajectory that is known as Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. In estimating impacts on climate change, climatologists use four representative such trajectories to project different greenhouse gas concentrations.

To put it plainly, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 assumes a combination of bad factors that are not likely to all coincide. It assumes “the fastest population growth (a doubling of Earth’s population to 12 billion), the lowest rate of technology development, slow GDP growth, a massive increase in world poverty, plus high energy use and emissions.”

Despite what the National Climate Assessment says, Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 is not a likely scenario. It estimates nearly impossible levels of coal consumption, fails to take into account the massive increase in natural gas production from the shale revolution, and ignores technological innovations that continue to occur in nuclear and renewable technologies.

When taking a more realistic view of the future of conventional fuel use and increased greenhouse gas emissions, the doomsday scenarios vanish. Climatologist Judith Curry recently wrote, “Many ‘catastrophic’ impacts of climate change don’t really kick at the lower CO2 concentrations, and [Representative Concentration Pathway] then becomes useful as a ‘scare’ tactic.”

3. It cherry-picks science on extreme weather and misrepresents timelines and causality.

But last year’s National Climate Assessment on extreme weather tells a different story. As University of Colorado Boulder professor Roger Pielke Jr. pointed out in a Twitter thread in August 2017, there were no increases in drought, no increases in frequency or magnitude of floods, no trends in frequency or intensity of hurricanes, and “low confidence for a detectable human climate change contribution in the Western United States based on existing studies.”

It’s hard to imagine all of that could be flipped on its head in a matter of a year.

Another sleight of hand in the National Climate Assessment is where certain graph timelines begin and end. For example, the framing of heat wave data from the 1960s to today makes it appear that there have been more heat wavesin recent years. Framing wildfire data from 1985 until today makes it appear as though wildfires have been increasing in number.

But going back further tells a different story on both counts, as Pielke Jr. has explained in testimony.

Moreover, correlation is not causality. Western wildfires have been particularly bad over the past decade, but it’s hard to say to what extent these are directly owing to hotter and drier temperatures. It’s even more difficult to pin down how much man-made warming is to blame.

Yet the narrative of the National Climate Assessment is that climate change is directly responsible for the increase in economic and environmental destruction of western wildfires. Dismissing the complexity of factors that contribute to a changing climate and how they affect certain areas of the country is irresponsible.

4. Energy taxes are a costly non-solution.

The National Climate Assessment stresses that this report “was created to inform policy-makers and makes no specific recommendations on how to remedy the problem.” Yet the takeaway was clear: The costs pf action (10 percent of America’s GDP) dwarf the costs of any climate policy.

The reality, however, is that policies endorsed to combat climate change would carry significant costs and would do nothing to mitigate warming, even if there were a looming catastrophe like the National Climate Association says.

Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposed a carbon tax of between $135 and $5,500 by the year 2030. An energy tax of that magnitude would bankrupt families and businesses, and undoubtedly catapult the world into economic despair.

These policies would simply divert resources away from more valuable use, such as investing in more robust infrastructure to protect against natural disasters or investing in new technologies that make Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 even more of an afterthought than it already should be.

The Trump administration is coming under criticism for publishing the report on Black Friday. To the extent that was a conscious strategy, it certainly isn’t a new tactic. The Obama administration had frequent Friday night document dumps in responding to congressional inquiries about Solyndra and the Department of Energy’s taxpayer-funded failures in the loan portfolio. The Environmental Protection Agency even released its Tier 3 gas regulations, which increased the price at the pump, on Good Friday.

No matter what party is in charge, the opposite party will complain about their burying the story. Regardless, the American public would be better served by enjoying the holiday season and shopping, rather than worrying about an alarmist report.